Microsoft

Microsoft {MSFT} is buying Nokia's devices unit for $7.2 billion dollars today.  Apparently because Steve Ballmer really likes their smart phones and the deal brings Nokia's Chief Executive, Stephen Elop, back to MSFT.  MSFT stock getting crushed in pre markets.  Lots of chatter this am about this.  See here, here, and here. 

I have two long term predictions:

1. Tiger Woods will never win another major golf tournament {defined as the Masters, US Open, The Open-British Open and the PGA}.

2.  MSFT is today what Eastman Kodak was in about 1995 and their long term fates will be similar.  The deal today from what I've been able to read has a certain air of desperation about it so I'll stick to that prediction.

*Long MSFT for several clients as a legacy position.  MSFT is also a component in many of the indices we own both personally and for clients.